New citizenship in Spain: from social cooperation to self-government

Abstract

The crisis in Spain has generated new forms of solidarity that have become new ways of being and living the city. Streets and houses have been taken by the population in protests and direct actions. Lack of alternatives and the government’s ‘do-nothing’ policy have pushed people to perform the ‘right to the city’ on their own and in collective ways. The 15M movement, with its assemblies in every public square and park, the ‘mareas’ (waves), which occupied hospitals and schools to create dialogue between parents and teachers and between doctors and patients, and the Platform of Mortgage Victims, the leading force in the struggle against evictions, are three examples of new ways of understanding the city. In the context of these experiments in self-management of the social reproduction of life, proposals for the transformation of government have also emerged, pointing precisely to the strengthening of citizen self-government. The most progressive experiments have taken place at the municipal level through popular electoral platforms that won 2015 elections in many cities. we can state that a new form of citizenship seems to be emerging according to which, citizens understand the city as their own, fight for the use and control of urban infrastructures and seek to institutionalise new forms of people’s control, participation and decision-making.